If you are a regular reader of Supply Chain Digest and Distribution Digest, then you know that we have recently been reporting on what one Supply Chain Executive called “the unraveling of the shipping compliance labeling standard”. We consider this to be a worrisome development and on July 21, 2009 we presented our findings to the compliance committee of VICS - (see Meeting with VICS on Emerging Retail Carton Labeling Issues).
We all know that developing, setting, and maintaining industry standards is a very serious business. In the process of researching the current UCC/GS1-128 label standard I ran across an interesting industry standard that has a connection to logistics. It deals with how the standard U.S. rail gauge specification came to be precisely 4 feet 8½ inches.
Seems like a decidedly odd number doesn't it? Well, it turns out there is a very interesting reason for this particular specification.
To understand the genesis of the number, you have to first step back historically. American railroads were largely engineered and built by British expatriates. Since the standard rail gauge in England was 4 feet 8½ inches, they apparently figured that would be the right number here in North America, as well. "But," you might ask, "Why is that the rail gauge in England?" Well, it's because early English railroads were built by the same people who built a pre-railroad tramway system throughout Britain.
OK! Why were the trams built to that specification? Simple. The people who made the trams had previously been in the business of building horse-drawn wagons. Those wagon wheels were spaced precisely (are you catching on here?) 4 feet, 8½ inches apart. Why? Because if they had used a different spacing, the wagons would have broken on old European roads that were full of ruts that just happened to be 4 feet, 8½ inches apart.
So, how did these roads come to have all these ruts spaced at such a seemingly arbitrary distance? You must keep in mind that many of the long-distance roads on the Continent were built to allow movement of the Imperial Roman legions and have been in use ever since.
And the ruts? They were made by some of the first vehicles to travel these roads: the war chariots of Roman armies. Once the ruts were established, other wagons had to match the ruts or risk damaging their wheels and axles.
And finally, "Why were the wheels on a Roman war chariot exactly 4 feet, 8½ inches apart?" Because, that was the average width of the backsides of the two warhorses used to power it.
 So, next time you ask, "What horse's ass came up with that specification," you may have answered your own question simply by asking it!
That's at least one story, anyway - some have disputed it.
It turns out, actually, that it took quite awhile for the standard to really take hold in the US.
According to the Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography, at the beginning of the Civil War, there were more than 20 different gauges ranging from 3 to 6 feet, although the 4-foot, eight-and-a-half inch was the most widely used.
During the war, any supplies transported by rail had to be transferred by hand whenever a car on one gauge encountered track of another gauge and more than 4,000 miles of new track was laid during the war to standardize the process. Later, Congress decreed that the 4-foot, eight-and-a-half inch standard would be used for transcontinental railway.
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